With Passover just around the corner, I decided for my final blog post to look into the Yiddish language and its relevance to the Jewish religion and culture. For those who don’t know, Yiddish is “a language based on German that is written in Hebrew characters and that was originally spoken by Jews of Central and Eastern Europe”. Growing up, I used to listen to my parents and grandparents vent out a couple of words over the dinner table, and hear them complain about how the dialect is dying out. This week, I decided to research more on the disappearance of this language.
As I started to investigate, I came across an article published in The Atlantic by Tanya Basu. She looked into the disappearance of the Yiddish language among modern day Jews. Basu states in the article that while Yiddish is not dead, it definitely has vanished among secular Jews. Nowadays, Yiddish is more prevalent with the orthodox Jews, and “the language has become synonymous with Orthodox Judaism”.
Furthermore, Basu interviewed Joseph Berger, a religion reporter from the NY Times, and asked what the future contains for Yiddish. He states “Yiddish will continue to flourish among the Hasidim*” “[But] Yiddish as a language of writers will not because the Hasidim don’t read those works. They use Yiddish as their lingua franca and to discuss the Torah. They don’t read secular works.” Others disagree and say that many view Yiddish as “cool” and study the language.
My question to you is how will the Jewish identity and culture remain alive with a language that many claim to be disappearing?
*Hasidim is synonymous for Orthodox Jews
Link to article: http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/09/yiddish-has-a-problem/379658/
Definition of Yiddish: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/yiddish
As I started to investigate, I came across an article published in The Atlantic by Tanya Basu. She looked into the disappearance of the Yiddish language among modern day Jews. Basu states in the article that while Yiddish is not dead, it definitely has vanished among secular Jews. Nowadays, Yiddish is more prevalent with the orthodox Jews, and “the language has become synonymous with Orthodox Judaism”.
Furthermore, Basu interviewed Joseph Berger, a religion reporter from the NY Times, and asked what the future contains for Yiddish. He states “Yiddish will continue to flourish among the Hasidim*” “[But] Yiddish as a language of writers will not because the Hasidim don’t read those works. They use Yiddish as their lingua franca and to discuss the Torah. They don’t read secular works.” Others disagree and say that many view Yiddish as “cool” and study the language.
My question to you is how will the Jewish identity and culture remain alive with a language that many claim to be disappearing?
*Hasidim is synonymous for Orthodox Jews
Link to article: http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/09/yiddish-has-a-problem/379658/
Definition of Yiddish: http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/yiddish